


As Artoo Saw It

by JediDryad



Series: February Fluff: 28 Ways Luke and Mara Get it Together at last. [16]
Category: Star Wars Legends - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends: Thrawn Trilogy - Timothy Zahn
Genre: Artoo has opinions, Artoo ships it, F/M, droid narration, februrary fluff, humans are irrational
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-16
Updated: 2021-02-16
Packaged: 2021-03-14 08:53:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 873
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29415945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JediDryad/pseuds/JediDryad
Summary: See Threepio is right. Human behaviour is perplexing. It defies all logic and calculations. Here Artoo Detoo struggles to apply rationality to Luke and Mara’s relationship. It goes about as well as one might expect.
Relationships: Mara Jade/Luke Skywalker, R2-D2 & Luke Skywalker
Series: February Fluff: 28 Ways Luke and Mara Get it Together at last. [16]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2129439
Comments: 21
Kudos: 34





	As Artoo Saw It

Artoo Detoo was not a young droid. He was 100 % aware of that about himself. He was well travelled and often accessed memories of locations and experiences that young Master Luke did not have in his databanks. He kept his own council on whether he should reveal details to the young Jedi. His programming was complex to begin with and the decades without memory wipes had given him more and more control over his settings and responses. He knew how to preserve data and maintain discretion.

Unlike his counterpart, See Threepio, Artoo Detoo was not a gossip.

But he did not have to choose whether or not to share information with young Master Luke this time. They had all been to this planet before: himself, Master Luke, and Mara Jade.

This was the planet with the enormous trees that scrambled signals, and whip tailed beasts that had ripped his arc welder out of its compartment. This had necessitated its replacement and a long period of reprogramming it to suit his needs. He did not wish to repeat that process. It was also the place where Master Luke and Mara Jade could not use all of their available settings. As a result, he was skeptical of the decision to return to this planet; but humans regularly demonstrated a significant inability to properly calculate risk, and young Master Luke was no exception - in fact, a query to the databanks offered proof he was much worse than the average human being with regards to this ability.

Mara Jade, initially, had seemed to have a stronger capacity for this elemental risk calculation, but Master Luke had proved a terrible influence on her - a detail she appeared to be aware of based on her current tone of voice and the expression on her face. Artoo’s human facial recognition program provided him with the understanding that Mara Jade was frustrated, but also possibly pleased. This, he determined, must be an error as his programming told him these emotions were incompatible with one another in humans.

They all sat in a clearing much like the clearings Artoo had memories of from several standard years before. This clearing had been selected after much animated discussion by his human companions who, apparently, had not expected to be journeying through the forest again. It seemed yet another failure of human reasoning capabilities that they would expect this experience of the planet to be significantly different from what previously acquired data predicted.

As such, Artoo Detoo recognized he was the only one properly prepared for this experience. 

Once again.

Master Luke and Mara Jade often perplexed him. They were both very much admired by their other human companions who regularly (more than 70% of the time) remarked that they would make good counterparts for one another, and yet they did not seem to agree with those companions.

This was a judgment Artoo could understand. Counterparts added complexity to a droid’s life and humans were complicated enough as it was.

He watched them interact, dividing tasks impressively equitably for organic beings: building a fire and cooking a meal. The fire had been ill advised on their last visit but Master Luke had advocated for it this time stating that the circumstances were different and it would prevent Vornskr attacks. 

Mara Jade conceded his point 27.35% faster than she did on average. Artoo made a note in case this proved a significant data point.

He observed that, while they maintained a distance from one another that matched his files for professional acquaintances, they maintained eye contact for significantly longer than human relations of that designation. He also recorded multiple instances of one watching the other perform tasks when efficiency would be better served by both focusing on their own tasks at the same time.

At least three times Master Luke registered Mara Jade’s observations and remained silent. Once, he smiled at her and the skin on her cheeks appeared to shift shades of pink by 12%. Artoo understood this to be a sign of embarrassment. Master Luke appeared to enjoy the embarrassment. This implied an adversarial relationship.

Then, after this moment, Artoo observed that their spatial interactions changed quite rapidly, advancing from the distance and gestures of professional acquaintanceship to that of close friends or relatives in short order, despite continued facial expressions and vocal tones implying an increasing frustration.

Artoo Detoo made a notation in his incident logs of this second apparent programming error in one day. He should consider running a diagnostic to be certain he hadn’t acquired a virus.

His concerns were allayed within minutes, however as Master Luke and Mara Jade suddenly appeared to forego the notion of spatial distance entirely. Their interaction registered as counterpart level. Mistress Leia and Captain Solo had been very insightful in their assessments. 

He would have to tell Threepio. It was important to remember one of the mysterious, incalculable aspects of human beings was their ability to defy programming and alter themselves or situations with an ease beyond Artoo’s capacity.

As his companions embraced, the shadowy light of the flames danced across their bare skin. Artoo switched off his recording mechanism and dimmed his photoreceptors.  


His discretion was one of his finest qualities after all.


End file.
